Latest Blogs
AP Won't Dare Compare: April Deficit Report Ignores Huge April '07 and
The comparison of the results contained in the April 2010 Monthly Treasury Statement released this afternoon to April of last year is bad enough. But if the American people knew that April 2010 came in about a quarter-trillion dollars worse than both 2007 and 2008 with almost 40% less in tax collections, most of them would be appalled. Many more than are already doing so would be questioning what…
NBC Astonished Poll Finds Most Support Arizona Law and Anti-Terror Pro
NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd seemed astonished by how a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll confirmed solid agreement with Arizona's immigration enforcement law – “a whopping 64 percent support the law,” Todd marveled, “and we read them the law verbatim exactly as it's been written” and still, he repeated, “64 percent approve of it.” NBC also treated as surprising the majority backing…
CNN Money's Plan to Save Social Security: Raise Taxes, Soak the Rich
Jeanne Sahadi at CNNMoney.com has finally realized Social Security needs urgent reform - and by reform, she means going after the wealthy, of course. On Monday, Sahadi reported on news from the Congressional Budget Office that Social Security is dipping into savings already this year and will not be able to meet its obligations by 2037. That's at least 15 years earlier than what the CBO had…
NYT's Collins Praises Margaret Sanger as Birth-Control Savior, Ignores
New York Times editor-turned-columnist Gail Collins's Saturday column celebrated the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill and waxed on birth-control activist Margaret Sanger for several paragraphs, without touching on Sanger's racism and support for eugenics. The online headline: "What Every Girl Should Know About Birth Control."Discussing purity crusader Anthony Comstock, Collins wrote:One…
Lefty Blogs, Duped By Student Project, Claim to Unearth 'Secret' Astro
One can't help but be a bit stunned at the audacity of an organization built by Morton Halperin and George Soros lecturing others on "astroturfing." But that same audacity -- not the good Barack Obama kind -- is taken to extremes when that same organization alleges a corporate conspiracy where there simply is none.Think Progress's Lee Fang was practically giddy that he had uncovered the next vast…
CBS Review of Russell Crowe Film: 'Robin Hood Meets Che Guevara
On CBS's Sunday Morning, correspondent Mark Phillips described the latest adaptation of the Robin Hood legend by director Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe: "And so here is an evil King John, squeezing his subjects for more taxes....And here is Robin. Not as a thief, but as a revolutionary figure trying to limit the King's power. Robin Hood meets Che Guevara." [Audio available here] …
MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Derides Obama for 'Going Overboard' With 'Pseu
MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday actually expressed some journalistic outrage over a White House PR video disguised as an interview, deriding the administration for "crossing a number of lines when it comes to journalism." An irritated Mitchell highlighted a video on the White House website that features Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. [Audio available here.]Most other media outlets…
The Untold Story of Astroturf: Corporate-Sponsored Environmentalism
Media often criticize Tea Party activism for being promoted from top down, while green movement openly backed by major corporations.
On NBC, Vieira Sputters at Laura Ingraham's Charge That Kagan Was 'Ant
NBC’s Today offered a conservative counterpoint on the Elena Kagan nomination on Wednesday: conservative radio talker and author Laura Ingraham. Co-host Meredith Vieira suggested Republicans were hypocrites to suggest Kagan was inexperienced. The top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, has said that her lack of experience to him is troubling. Yet when Harriet…
Lead Prosecutor Chris Matthews Indicts Dick Cheney for Oil Spill
Chris Matthews simply can't get Dick Cheney out of his mind. On Tuesday's Hardball, the MSNBC host once again attempted to pin the blame of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on the former vice president, a theory he first broached last week, as he sinisterly questioned "What role did Dick Cheney play in all of this?" Matthews, going after one of his favorite punching bags, brought on Democratic…
Under Painting of Lincoln Peering Down at Obama, USA Today Explores Ob
“Will doing 'big things' wind up costing Obama?” a Wednesday USA Today front page article worried, accompanied by a photo of contemplative President Barack Obama with Abraham Lincoln in a painting peering down at him. The caption: “History book bound?” The subhead for the story by Susan Page and Mimi Hall: “Voters' anxiety clouds his historic successes.” The effusive lead presumed Obama deserves…
Deficit Comes In Just Below CBO Estimate; Economists' Predictions Were
It doesn't seem like this exercise should be that tough. The government issues Daily Treasury Statements telling everybody what went in and out on a given business day. At the end of the month, the last Daily Treasury Statement has a record (admittedly jumbled and larded with lots of bureaucratic excess) of all receipts and disbursements for the month. The folks at the Congressional Budget…
Britain Moves Right, CBS Sees Cameron as Just Another Liberal
On Wednesday's CBS Early Show, correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reported on Conservative Party leader David Cameron becoming the new British prime minister, but downplayed the political shift: "Cameron is a conservative in the British sense. In favor of gay rights, a green agenda, and the welfare state." While in American conservative terms Cameron would certainly be considered a moderate, for…